Overview:

Yoga is one of America's most profitable holistic health care systems. Everything from books, tapes, and yoga classes are exquisitely marketed to promote this beneficial alternative therapy. Yoga, which has its roots in India, uses exercises (asanas) to relax and tone the muscles and to massage the organs, breathing techniques (pranayama) to regulate the body's energy levels, meditations to calm the mind, and relaxation postures to reduce and eliminate stress and anxiety..

Yoga is the most renowned and most practiced form of mind/body therapy. There are several forms and schools of yoga available in the West, including Ashtanga, Integral, Iyengar, kriya, Kundalini, Sivananda, Tantra, and Vini, Each emphasizes a different aspect of the body/mind relationship. Hatha yoga is the yoga concerned with physical and energetical purification and training; it is the form of yoga most people think of when they think of doing something athletic to heal themselves. There are many other less known forms of yoga therapy, most of which are spiritual and stress a connection and devotion to god on the astral plane. Hatha yoga employs a variety of physical postures and breathing exercises to act upon the nervous system. Most yoga systems utilize energy medicine to regulate heart rate, promote clarity and peace of mind, and to retard the aging prccess.

The theoretical abstracts of yoga were first put down in writing by Patanjali in the second century B.C. in the Yoga Sutras. The word yoga means "union," a union between mind and body. Yoga is famous for increasing flexibility. Because most forms of muscular strain, fatigue, and chronic pain are the result of restriction in the soft tissues, lengthening these tissues often lessens discomfort. Yoga increases strength, flexibility, balance, relaxation, and maintains musculature. .

Method:

Yogic postures, or asanas (asana means "ease" in Sanskrit), are generally classified into the following groups: standing poses, inverted poses, twists, backward bending poses, forward bends and poses for restoration. The following are the names of some of the more specific, commonly used Hatha yoga asanas (with the Indian name in parentheses): Corpse (Shavasana), Child's Posture (Balasana), Posterior Stretch (Paschimottanasana), Cobra (Bhujangasana), Locust (Shalabhasana), Half Spinal Twist (Ardha Matsyendrasana), Shoulderstand (Sarvangasana), Half Fish (Ardha Matsyasana). The major aims of yoga therapy include purification and detoxification of the body and senses. Bowel purification, enemas, nasal cleansing, and cleansing of the eyes are practices encouraged by yoga; there is even an alternate nostril breathing exercise. The practice of asana, often known as Hatha yoga, is available in two different types: meditative and therapeutic. According to yoga theory and practice, the inner life energy is prana, the power and essence of the body. Supposedly, prana circulates throughout the body in a system of 72,000 subtle nerves or nadis.

Pranayama exercises are designed to remove blockages in the the nadis that prevent the proper flow of prana throughout the body. Blockages in the nadis can be brought on by stress, improper diet, or toxins. Yoga believes that when the flow of prana is interrupted, one's mental, physical, and emotional health are affected. Pranayama works primarily through the modification and regulation of breath control (pranayama means "regulation or control of prana, or life force"). Samadhi is the meditative branch of yoga that focuses on meditation and altered states of consciousness. It has been revealed that in samadhi, the individual enters a fourth state of consciousness, a state of awareness separate from the ordinary states of waking, dream, and sleep.

Classical yoga is organized into eight stages, or "limbs." The first four limbs serve to bring mind and body into harmony ("union"); these limbs are very therapeutic in nature. The remaining four limbs deal with stages of meditation. The ultimate goal of yoga is to help the individual attain heightened vitality. .

Common cures:

Yoga is noted for increasing flexibility. It also improves circulation and structural alignment; heightens mental acuity; elevates mood; improves respiration, digestion and elimination. Yoga is also known for improving memory and intelligence, alleviating pain, improving motor skills, relieving addictions, heightening visual and auditory perceptions, enhancing metabolic function, and increasing longevity.

Application:

There is a close connection between yoga and bodywork therapy. Both of these therapies have become mutually compatible, to the point now where the two schools have similar philosophies and objectives. Rolfing, a popular bodywork practice, is praised and utilized by many yoga therapists. Yoga is also an integral part of ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic physicians regularly train patients in the practice of postures, stretches, and breathing exercises. In addition, the use of acupressure may help some yoga patients with acute conditions or syndromes heal themselves without having to be placed on medication. Finally, meditation plays an important role in yoga, helping patients relax and have increased mental acuity on whatever plain of consciousness they may be when they stretch.

Modern medicine's perspective:

Yoga therapy is a growing alternative medicine field in American health care. In the West, an increasing number of physicians are prescribing Hatha yoga classes as an alternate form of relaxation and treatment for their patients. Yoga effects are far reaching: yoga is now not only a field of alternative medicine, but also a burgeoning business with teachers and practitioners worldwide. Even some insurance companies now cover expenses from yoga therapy. Yet, even with its newfound approval and popularity, it is the therapeutic results of yoga along with the many conditions it benefits that is making converts of the established medical community.

http://www.yoganexus.com/

http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/Yoga/Overview .html

Yoga Fitness 397 East Campbell Avenue Campbell, CA (408) 777-YOGA

http://www.iyoga.com/yf/

Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide; Compiled by the Burton Goldberg Group; Future Medicine Publishing, Inc.; Puyallup, Washington; copyright 1994.

http://lonestar.texax.net/~m108/

http://www.yogajournal.com/

Himalayan Institute of Yoga, Science, and Philosophy RRI Box 400 Honesdale, Pennsylvania 18431 (717) 253-5551 (800) 822-4547

International Association of Yoga Therapists 109 Hillside Avenue Mill Valley, Californa 94941 (415) 383-4587

Iyengar Yoga 2404 27th Avenue San Francisco, California 94116 (415) 753-0909

Samata Yoga and Health Institute 4150 Tivoli Avenue Los Angeles, California 90066 Tel: (310) 306-8845; Fax: (310) 306-4632

Sivananda Yoga 5178 South Lawrence Boulevard Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2T 1R8 (514) 279-3545

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